Trickster's Smile
by The Flying Hobbo
Summary: Uzumaki Naruto is, in essence, a trickster. Oneshot


Disclaimer:

Don't own Naruto, visualize the rest of the disclaimer in your mind if you insist on it being there.

**Trickster**

Uzumaki Naruto is, in essence, a trickster.

He has worn many faces since he was born and played so many roles he has long lost count – _he's not quite sure which one is his true face anymore, or if he ever even had one._

He adorned his first mask when he was six years old and realized that tears didn't make the glares go away, they only made that vicious gleam of satisfaction appear in people's eyes. Naruto's head rang when hit by the mirror a shopkeeper had 'accidentally' dropped next to him, showering him with shards. He heard the man's smug words, something about paying for the damages, but he paid no attention to them: he watched his reflection in the shining wreck, a hundred different versions of him with red-rimmed eyes and a dejected look looking back at him. Suddenly, his mind seemed to clear and lucidity flowed through his thoughts: he understood, now. He understood the futility of it all, and Uzumaki Naruto looked up at the now fuming man, grinning cheerfully before walking away. The look of pure stupefaction on his face dried away the tears as if they'd never been there _– that night, for the first time since he could remember, he slept without nightmares._

He hated the Academy with an undying passion, but he kept smiling. Not for his sake: he'd already learned the true lessons ,really, and no amount of instruction from chuunins who believed in faded ideals could teach him anything. No, he kept on smiling because he looked at the other children and saw what he could have been. Naïve, blind fools they were, but so happy that just being near them warmed him like an old man stretching his cold limbs next to a fire. He was alone, however, until that fateful night where the will of a handful of fools bled the Uchiha to death in the gutters of the Leaf. Uchiha Sasuke came back to class with eyes of ice and darkness, and Naruto smiled – _he knew plenty about hate and pain, and it seemed the Gods had handed him a brother._

Zabuza was the first to glimpse there was something harsher under the smile, when two orphans looked at him with not fear but a sort of contemptuous pity – the kind reserved for particularly slow students that couldn't quite grasp the lesson no matter how hard they dried. The Demon of the Mist felt a chill up his spine when with a few shuriken and a trick he lost all hold on the situation, Kakashi emerging from the waters with death spinning lazily in his eye. He later dismissed it as his imagination but when the mist on that damned bridge cleared, he saw nothing but defeat. Kakashi and Sakura might have thought Zabuza's last charge was an attempt to redeem what little humanity was left in him, but that is far from the truth – _he was running away from the mocking laughter that danced in cerulean blue eyes._

Kiba was the second to witness the steel under the grin, even if he only realized it years later. Naruto walked in the arena grinning like a fool and shattered the Inuzuka's pride so thoroughly and elegantly that no one in the room managed to appreciate it – Sasuke might have, but he was away trying futilely to stall what would be his downfall. Naruto smiled as his adversary's own hand struck the most precious thing in his life, Akamaru being revealed in a cloud of smoke. He finished by ridiculing his opponent, making his vaunted nose the very cause of his loss in the most vulgar manner he could conceive – _he walked out still grinning, because not a single one of the fools surrounding him saw the dark laughter behind his every gesture._

In many ways, his little waltz with Neji was a way of spitting on the pride of Konoha's mighty. Looking at the Hyuuga, Naruto saw so many things he despised – the ancient blood of a great house, the heritage of strength and respect that ran as old as the rivers of Fire Country, the arrogance of one born to privilege. He looked at the heir of the Jyuuken without even a hint of fear because for all his proclamations of pain, the blue-blood still hadn't realized that strength had nothing to do with victory: it was not the strong that were victors, Naruto had learned long ago, it was the victors that were called strong. So he gave a mocking bow to the tragic noble and started to make a parody of his 'power'. To the might of the Jyuuken, he opposed nothing but shadows and a sleight of hand, showing how inadequate the glorious legacy of the Hyuuga was when facing a crass orphan that had crawled out of Konoha's trash. When Neji bared his curse to the thousand of prying eyes, Naruto bowed his head in some what thought to be emotion – only Sasuke would have understood that it was because if he'd looked at the noble for a second longer, laughter would have escaped his lips and he was not sure he could have stopped. He measured his seal against Neji's and found the Hyuuga wanting – _his eyes screamed weak, weak, weak as crimson flared and his burden crushed Neji's, leaving a scar on the ground almost as vicious as the one he left on the noble's soul._

The reason Gaara was so terrifying, Naruto understood as he saw the madman laugh for the first time, because he wore his hatred for everyone to see. It seemed to bring him a sense of twisted pride but Naruto simply thought it was indecent – the fellow jinchuuriki offended his sensibilities, and for that he followed the Kazekage's son when he fled into the woods. Sasuke could have made him understand, perhaps, but Naruto felt it was his responsibility to teach someone's whose fate had been so eerily similar to his own. Perhaps that was why this battle – asfor this once it was a battle and not a game for his own amusement – was the most brutal he'd ever fought. A thousand hands tore at the sand until Gaara's demon rose and Naruto amusedly turned his mount into his own before ending the madness with a single strike. He leaned down next to the broken mirror that was the child from Suna and taught him that a smile could be a hundred times sharper than any blade – _seeing Naruto walking from the fuming wreck of what had once been the Shukaku, Gaara could not help but wonder who was the true demon between the blond and the Kyuubi._

As time passed, enemies flickered faster and faster in front of his eyes, but the smile never wavered and Naruto never lost, as he rose to glory and finally sat on the chair that had been his father's - that chair and he'd proclaimed he wanted ever since he'd understood there was no greater jest than to make than make a demon-bound urchin the most powerful man in the Elemental Countries. He smiled when the crowd howls in approval at his coronation and an army of shinobi kneels at his feet in a display of loyalty, in their eyes a degree of fanatism unmatched since the founding of the Six Paths. _They don't get it at all, how it doesn't mean anything, but he doesn't expect them to anymore_.

Friends and foes alike had always thought that the reason he kept getting up when he was knocked down was resolute determination, but truly it is because his opponents had already lost. _They simply hadn't realized it yet._


End file.
